Good God Man! Don't Lick THAT!

Cooking for Th and myself since my return home has been tricky as can be.  He anxiously awaited my return to have me cook his favorite meals.  Ok, no worries dear, let me go and whomp that up for you.  Halfway through making one of his favorites, Mac and cheese, I started to taste the cheese sauce to see if it was seasoned properly and realized tis full of milk and cheese a total no fly zone.  Then I needed to test the pasta to see if it was done, "shit!" I cant do that either!  TH tasted the noodles, but trying to walk him thru if the cheese sauce was right was insane.  He kept answering, "I don't know honey, it's just not right....." taking the trillionth taster and we finally just called it good.  He ate it, seemed happy enough after I got over my grumbles.   He loves the salmon pancakes that I posted a while back, but I've never tasted them, due to egg and flour.  And while the wheat flour is easily exchanged for gluten free "flour", eggs are a tricky bastard to replace.  Mayo won't work in this recipe, and just gave it up and make them for him alone.

Stupid traitor body with the insane food allergies!  Gah!

I made him a sandwich a few days ago, and went to lick the extra mayo off the spoon, stopping myself just right before it entered my mouth.  Over half of what he has been dreaming about eating while I was gone is un-taste-able for me.  I rarely use a recipe, as I cook by taste and smell and look, with taste leading the way by a long stretch.

Being ever the pusher of all things rule related I tried some apples and onions on my favorite pork sandwich (now sans bun, so is it even actually a sandwich?) at one of our fav restaurants.  Turns out that even though beer is fermented, and then cooked for a long time in with the apples and onions, it was enough to cause my system to go into complete disarray for days.

Some things I just make two meals, with only veggies or rice and occasionally potatoes being overlapping portions of our meals.  Which lead to loads of extra work, mega amount of pots and pans to wash, before I wised up and called it quits.

It has taken quite a bit of recipe repair work to make things that we both are happy eating, and doesnt make me sick, and that makes TH smile.  Some have been an easy fix, others have taken quite a bit of imagination to pull off.  Gluten free pasta and crackers and cookies, he loves!  Yippeee!!  Rice milk used in place of milk for cream sauces, not so much.  Vegan butter and mayo, he loves em both!  Vegan cheese?  Oh hellz no!  Soy yogurt, yes please!

I've found some vegan yogurt starter.  Why vegan?  Because all other yogurt starters have been raised on milk, and I'm not exactly sure how little milk it will take to crash and burn my combustion systems, but after the apples and onions incident, I'm not willing to go there any time soon.  Found some plain soy milk and this weekend I'm going to make some soy yogurt.  Our local stores only sell soy yogurt in wee plastic containers all flavored with sugar and fruit.  Nummy deluxe for snacks and whatnot, but not so good for recipes requiring plain yogurt.  Also want to try draining it to make a fake-y sour cream and further draining to get yogurt cheese to use in place of cream cheese.  Then!!  Yes then we can get seriously down on alfredo sauce with fresh caught salmon.

Over these last few months I had forgotten the sad state of produce in Alaska grocery stores.  The lack of variety, herbs being the number one unable to buy consistently.  Outside of parsley and cilantro, which are normally fairly fresh, its practically a herb free zone here.  Now and then they get in a new shipment of basil and I hurry home to use it up in a day or two before it dies.  Mint, shisho, watercress, lemongrass, and shallots aren't to be found.  Even something as common as hot peppers can be a hard to find item.  Oh, they have 'em, but they are dying, shriveled and often times moldy.  And that is impacting my cooking as well.  My new go to cuisine is Vietnamese and their food heavily uses fresh herbs, so much of my favorite meals that I couldn't wait to share with TH will have to wait for him to come and visit me in Arizona.